Continue reading FTC cracking down on tricky Internet advertising including bloggers

FTC cracking down on tricky Internet advertising including bloggers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In the summer of last year, BladeLogic (NASDAQ: BLOG) launched its IPO, which skyrocketed nearly 50%. It helped that one of its main rivals, Opsware, get a $1.65 billion buyout offer from Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ).

Well, BladeLogic has now agreed to sell out, although at a lower valuation: $800 million. The buyer is tech veteran, BMC Software (NYSE: BMC).

BladeLogic is focused on helping to deal with the mind-numbing complexities of data centers, helping with things like compliance, downtime, speed and so on. Keep in mind that there's about $140 billion spent on data centers per year.

At the same time, over the past few years, BMC has done a good job restructuring its company. Now it's in a position to ramp growth - and BladeLogic will be a nice boost. In fiscal Q1, the company's revenues spiked 68% to $21.4 million.

Although, Wall Street is skeptical. In today's trading, BMC's stock is down 7% to $31.31.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

BMC blazes a deal for BladeLogic originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I often spend a little time over at Blogmaverick.com, where Mark Cuban recently sought to give the world of blogging a little of his insightful perspective. It seems that Mr. Cuban finds little to respect in the world of blogging, or at least in the world of slipshod ,cookie-cutter blogging. Though I found Mark's blog entry a trifle difficult to read, which is quite unusual coming from him, I nonetheless agree with most of the body of his post. I especially agree with his assertion that just because a blog is backed by the name of a well-known media organization does not in itself render that blog worthy of special notice.

Mark Cuban wrote, "...newspapers having 'bloggers' is easily one of the many bad decisions that newspapers have made over the past 10 years." If newspapers are going in a wrong direction by producing blogs, perhaps they need to reinstall the title reporter and drop the title blogger to give a different perspective to the reader. If newspapers are using the term blog simply as a culture hook, then they have it all wrong and they're just selling their reporters short. I believe that I'm in agreement with Mark Cuban when I say that true reporters should be releasing content within some format other than blogs. Blogging is what I do, and I'll be the first to tell you that I'm no reporter. The titles are absolutely not interchangeable, though they may sometimes be used correctly in tandem.

Continue reading Billionaire Mark Cuban offers opinions on blogging

Billionaire Mark Cuban offers opinions on blogging originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Merriman initiated Linc Energy (OTC: LNCGY) with a Buy rating and believes the company is well-positioned to become a large producer of ultra-clean, high quality diesel fuel, at extremely high margins.
  
• Equinix (NASDAQ: EQIX) was assumed with a Buy rating and $120 target at Deutsche Bank. The firm thinks the company continues to benefit from favorable industry dynamics as customer demand continues to outstrip supply of new co-location space industry-wide.
  
• Susquehanna is positive on Smith & Wesson's (NASDAQ: SWHC) leading market position in the handgun market and top line growth. The firm started shares with a Positive rating.

• ComScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) was reinstated with an Outperform rating at Credit Suisse.
• UBS initiated Willbros Group (NYSE: WG) with a Buy rating and $4 target.
  
• Lazard started BladeLogic (NASDAQ: BLOG) with a Hold rating.

Analyst initiations: Linc Energy, Equinix, Smith & Wesson originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 09 Jan 2008 11:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• A WSJ.com survey found that economists are more optimistic about the economy and see a lessening chance of a recession, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK.A) sold its shares in the China-controlled PetroChina Company Limited (NYSE: PTR), according to the Wall Street Journal's "Heard on the Street" column, leading many investors uncertain about China's stock valuations.
• The WSJ also reported that a jury in Nevada awarded $134.5M to three women who said hormone therapy drugs manufactured by Wyeth (NYSE: WYE), including Prempro and Premarin, caused their breast cancer.

• The SEC began an inquiry into oversight of the New York State pension fund. The SEC is trying to find out if civil violations of federal securities laws were committed, the New York Times reported.
• Over 90,000 children's products imported by J.C. Penny Company (NYSE: JCP) from China, Taiwan and Vietnam, were recalled because of dangerous levels of lead, the Associated Press reported.

• Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) said on its blog that it has improved its service for the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges by providing pricing data in real time and hopes the SEC will approve their "Last Sale" proposal, which would allow users free and unlimited access to real-time last sale prices for the NYSE and Nasdaq stocks.

Newspaper wrap-up: Economists see a lessening chance of recession originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• Morgan Stanley assumed coverage of Credit Suisse Group (NYSE: CS) with an Overweight rating, Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE: DB) with an Equal Weight rating and UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) with an Underweight rating.
• Voltaire Ltd (NASDAQ: VOLT) was started with a Buy rating and $29 target at Goldman Sachs, with a Neutral rating at JP Morgan, with an Overweight rating and $12 target at Thomas Weisel and with an Outperform rating and $15 target at RBC Capital. Thomas Weisel said the market gives Voltaire very little credit for its strong position in the rapidly growing Infiniband switch market and RBC Capital believes the stock has impressive growth and gross margin momentum.
  
• Perfect World Co Ltd (NASDAQ: PWRD) was initiated with a Positive rating at Susquehanna, as the firm is positive on its growth potential in the online gaming industry in China.
• Aspreva Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NASDAQ: ASPV) was initiated with a Sector Perform at RBC Capital, as the firm believes the current valuation is not attractive, and recommends $17 as an attractive entry point. The firm set a target of $22 on the shares.

• Drugstore.com Inc (NASDAQ: DSCM) was started with a Market Perform rating at JMP Securities.
• Wachovia started shares of BladeLogic Inc (NASDAQ: BLOG) with an Outperform rating and $17 target. The stock was also initiated at Morgan Stanley with an Equal Weight rating and at Citigroup with a Hold rating and $27.50 target.
• Lehman initiated Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc (NYSE: SPR) with an Overweight rating and $43 target.
• Goldman Sachs started shares of Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc (NYSE: MMC) with a Sell rating and $25 target.

Analyst initiations 9-4-07: VOLT, PWRD and ASPV originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Those of you who have been interested in blogs for several years are probably well aware of the company Technorati. This website made a splash by becoming the first market-share dominator in the entire Web 2.0 space, especially in the blog search engine space. But times have changed and Technorati is struggling to hold on.

The situation in Technorati is quickly shifting to more difficult, seemingly by the day. As TheDeal.com reported on Friday, the founding CEO of the company recently stepped down. In addition, the company has been forced to recently slash eight jobs to adjust the company's expense structure. Perhaps the most startling of it all -- Technorati is quickly losing its dominant market share position.

According to research firm Hitwise, Technorati's number one market share position is now just secured by 1%. The company currently stands at 34% of the blog search market, while Google's blog search product is a strong and growing 33%.

As you can see from the chart below (courtesy of Alexa.com), Technorati's page views figures are well off of their peak. Understandably, this traffic decline has been a huge catalyst to a weakening position in the blog search market, as well as financial difficulties, because for most internet companies, traffic is everything.

Continue reading Tough times for Technorati

Tough times for Technorati originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 19 Aug 2007 14:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Bear Stearns Companies Inc (NYSE: BSC) will reinforce the risk controls in its money management unit following the meltdown of two of its internal hedge funds tied to subprime loans, reported the Wall Street Journal.
• According to the Wall Street Journal, Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Nokia Corporation (NYSE: NOK) and Siemens AG (NYSE: SI), will invest about $100M in India over the next three years.
• Consumers are going to buy many more large liquid crystal display, or LCD, flat screen TVs than large plasma flat screen TVs, reported the Financial Times.

• News Corporation (NYSE: NWS) has acquired two weekly newspapers in the Bronx, The Bronx Times and The Bronx Times Reporter, reported the New York Times.
• Google Inc (NADSAQ: GOOG) has announced the acquisition of start-up company GrandCentral Communications on its official blog website, Google.Blogspot.com.

Newspaper wrap-up 7-03-07: News Corp buys two papers originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo's handling of financial blogs says it all originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) and online services company Salesforce.com Inc (NYSE: CRM) may form a partnership to better compete with Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), reported the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).
  

• The U.K. Times reported that Warner Music Group Corporation (NYSE: WMG) is expected to offer EMI Group (OTC: EMIPY) a "£100 million sweetener" to try and keep the company from accepting an offer from private equity.
• According to The Observer, Royal Bank of Scotland (OTC: RBSPY), along with its partners Fortis and Banco Santander Central Hispano (NYSE: STD), hope to "table" a £47 billion offer for ABN Amro Holdings (NYSE: ABN) this week.
• The Observer reported that a private equity consortium is considering a $15 billion offer for Virgin Media Inc (NASDAQ: VMED).
• Cadbury Schweppes ADS (NYSE: CSG) is planning to return £5 billion to shareholders through a special dividend or share buyback, according to The Observer.
• The Sunday Telegraph reported that UBS AG (NYSE: UBS) will offer to buy out the pension schemes of some of the leading FTSE100 companies next week.
• Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) may be looking to acquire British social networking site Bebo, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
• The Bollywood film producer, Eros International, is expected to announce a partnership with Google Inc's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube, the Sunday Telegraph reported.
• Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited's (NASDAQ: TEVA) Copaxone will face generic competition for the first time, but will not see an impact immediately, Ha'aretz reported.

• The Orange County Register blog looked at a transcript from IndyMac Bancorp Inc's (NYSE: IMB) first quarter conference call, where the CEO Michael Perry said: "When you see that delinquency number in the press of 13% subprime delinquencies, it's hugely understated. It is absolutely hugely understated. And the prime delinquencies are overstated. The subprime delinquencies are more like 18, 20, 22% delinquencies and that's where I think you're going to see the problems."

Newspaper wrap-up 5-21-07: Google may form partnership with Salesforce.com originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 21 May 2007 09:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Apple iPhone/Engadget SNAFU: The aftermath

Apple iPhone/Engadget SNAFU: The aftermath originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 17 May 2007 19:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Heinrich von Pierer resigned as chairman of Siemens AG ADR's (NYSE: SI) supervisory board amid criminal bribery probes, reported the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

• The Business Standard reported that Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) has sent a revised application to operate single-brand retail stores in India.
• From BusinessWeek's "Inside Wall Street" column:
  
• Credit Suisse Group ADS (NYSE: CS) is an undervalued wealth-management stock.
  
• Cardiac Science Corporation (NASDAQ: CSCX) is a solid, long term story, according to SunTrust's Jonathan Block.
  
• Home Solutions of America Inc (NASDAQ: HSOA) will do well, with extensive work to do in New Orleans and a large backorder.

• According to Google's official blog page, Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) has acquired Marratech's video conferencing software.

Newspaper wrap-up 4-20-07: Starbucks trying to move into India originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 20 Apr 2007 09:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Jobs from blogging: Far more companies are hiring than you'd think

Jobs from blogging: Far more companies are hiring than you'd think originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

EBay: Well-thought out responses welcome originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 23 Feb 2007 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Insider Blogging looks at the blogs about our favorite companies, exposing the last legal way to get "inside information."

I'm what you might call a First Amendment scholar, having taken law-school-level courses on the subject and researched a number of such cases for my various, data-rich employers. And even though I'm a political liberal, I have a bias against extending "privacy" laws to online behavior, especially when said online behavior is conducted on very public services. I just don't agree that there is a "compelling interest" in protecting one's search behavior, especially if it can't be definitively traced back to the individual. In a free society, private enterprises should be able to do whatever they wish with the information you type into their tools; unless they've told you otherwise. In my opinion? Your behavior on a search engine is just as protectable as anything else you do in the public realm; what groceries you purchase, for instance, or what car you drive.

So I'm entirely not shocked that AOL put a bunch of customer search data (without, it must be noted, any identifying information about who did the searching) online 10 days ago. Now, apologies have been issued ("This was a screw-up, and we're angry and upset," says a spokesperson). I seem to be in the minority, however; the internet, it is horrified.

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch seems to be most shocked, saying that "The utter stupidity of this is staggering ," [emphasis his] and he claims that "the abilitiy to analyze all searches by a single user will often lead people to easily determine who the user is, and what they are up to ... many people often search on their own name, or those of their friends and family, to see what information is available about them on the net. Combine these ego searches with porn queries and you have a serious embarrassment. Combine them with "buy ecstasy" and you have evidence of a crime. Combine it with an address, social security number, etc., and you have an identity theft waiting to happen. The possibilities are endless."

Wow. That's a bit inflammatory, Michael, don't you think?

Continue reading Insider blogging: the great AOL search caper

Insider blogging: the great AOL search caper originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 07 Aug 2006 20:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I participated in a panel discussion at a conference on Saturday with a couple of young, smart, geeky teenagers -- i.e., the absolute center of most marketers' universe. These girls, Iris and Sheena, were the very definition of "early adopter" and "Generation Y" all rolled into one, a tiny yet brilliant focus group on the future of technology, social networking, and the internet.

Someone asked if Iris had a blog, and she said, "I hate to say this, but [pause] MySpace." She and Sheena both related how they checked out their MySpace accounts daily to see if friends had tried to contact them. For the two of them, both from lower-income families and members of under-represented minority groups, their technology lives consisted of homework, their podcasts, and MySpace.

If I were less of an analytical sort, I'd immediately say that MySpace is clearly winning the social networking arena. The site has the teenagers! What's more, it has hours each day of attention from these girls, from my youngest sister, my babysitter -- all of the 13- to 25-year-old demographic, really. But then I thought for an instant more, and I realized that Iris and Sheena were both the perfect example of MySpace's market domination and the reason why Microsoft, AOL, and Google will always win the race for ad dollars.

There's no money in these teenagers' MySpace behavior.

Continue reading MySpace: still cool, but Microsoft, AOL, Google monetize better

MySpace: still cool, but Microsoft, AOL, Google monetize better originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 31 Jul 2006 15:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In a Financial Times article yesterday on eBay's desire to "cash in" on blogs, a competitor in that space laid down the ultimate fighting words: "eBay can't do this because they don't have the inventory." This being letting bloggers list products on their own sites, receiving half of the fees if the product sells.

The competitor, MeCommerce, is selling mainstream stuff -- books, music and t-shirts -- through third-party distributors, so in a way, co-founder Yobie Benjamin is right. eBay doesn't have deep inventory in, say, the copy of Penelope and the Pirates that I might recommend on my own blog.

Claims that eBay "doesn't have inventory" are made to stir up interest, to inspire a second look. And I'm not buying the razzle and dazzle. I am interested in these "cash in on blogging" plans, but it seems all murky, hopeful, and "open source" (which in this case seems to be eBay speak for "we'll let someone else make a decision here"). UK managing director Doug McCallum says "Our approach would be to develop new tools that we can turn over to bloggers, so they can define the natural shape of the marketplace on their own." While it may be "how eBay originally developed," it doesn't give investors much to go on.

eBay 'doesn't have the inventory' to profit from blogs? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Blogger David Berlind was browsing around in Technorati and found a strange error. He checked again, just to be sure, but it appeared that his Technorati error was causing a Yahoo! 404 Not Found message. He wonders if Yahoo! has acquired the leading blog search engine.

If the buzz is true, it will prove TechCrunch's Michael Arrington (and Red Herring's Liz Gannes, who quoted him) to be one heck of a prognosticator. Back in January, he asked, "When Will Yahoo! Acquire Technorati?" and noted that Technorati CEO Dave Sifry had declined to comment on the speculation.

"No Comment" has never been proof of anything, but strange errors may be at least evidence enough to start the rumor mills churning. Interestingly, both Technorati and Yahoo! are spending a lot of time this week talking video; Technorati struck a deal with Paramount to help create buzz about new movies, and Yahoo! previewed its new home page with (of all things) video right there front and center.

Yahoo! was solidly up in trading today, 53 cents, to $29.53, and has soared in after hours -- up over 4% since yesterday's close. Everybody loves a rumor.

Yahoo! acquiring Technorati? That's the net buzz originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 19 May 2006 22:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One of the wondrous things about this blog revolution is that there is now an ever-increasing and incredibly diverse multitude of voices out there who offer their views across an almost infinite variety of topics.  And sure, there's a lot of schlock that one must dig through to find those golden nuggets offering inspired insights, but they are there nonetheless and well worth the effort of excavation.

(As a related side note and if you will forgive the shameless promotion - the team here at Blogging Stocks that the Weblogs Inc crew has put together is so impressive that it gets me incredibly amped up to jump in with this group and make this blog a precious metal in its own right!  But I digress.)

Among these multitudes of knowledgeable voices, Cringley has been at the forefront of analyzing computer technology since nineteen bada bing!  He is a wise gray beard among techies and generous to share his seasoned insights with those who have found him in the blogosphere.

In a recent series of blog posts, Cringley offers speculation as to what Apple is really up to with its Boot Camp offering which will allow users of OS X to install and run the Windows operating system "natively" on their Mac's.

Cringley provocatively opines that Apple may eventually offer the ability to run Windows XP applications "with no XP installed on the machine at all."

WOW!

Super double WOW!

For the rest of the fat and the skinny, see Cringley's entry here.

What Apple really wants with Windows originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 24 Apr 2006 10:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.